


folie a deux

by wanderstag



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-12-21 05:37:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderstag/pseuds/wanderstag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of brief works centered around Alana Bloom and Will Graham, of Bryan Fuller's NBC adaptation of Hannibal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	folie a deux

Will has lost track of the days completely; he reasons them to be useless, trivial matters that no longer pertain to him. So when the familiar tread of footsteps on the concrete floors clutch him like a vise from a fitful sleep, he wonders if a whole month has passed between this visit and the last. A month might seem infrequent, but Will has no cause to complain. He wonders if this infrequency is due to the fact that Alana can’t bear any more visits, to see the man that she once held behind glass, caged and fearful- once brilliant, reduced to a groveling, pathetic excuse for a human being.

Oh, how the might have fallen.

After a moment’s pondering, he concludes that it could not have been that long; it seemed as if it were just last week that Alana had visited, pressing her palm to the frosted glass as if it could compare to actual skin contact. She smiles at him, and he can feel his lungs retract and expand, sucking in poisoned air. He feels submerged, yet grounded. Distant, yet closer than he’s ever been.

She stops in front of his cell and smiles like a beacon of light on the water, a bobbing ship pointing toward home. He wants to trace her smile with his fingertips, but the cold glass catch him halfway.

"Happy birthday," she whispers, fingers splayed against his own. Her palm reddens with the pressure applied to  the thin wall as her words hit the side of his skull, rattling around on his nerve impulses before lurching him toward understanding. Alana visits once a month without fail, but she’s made an exception for today. The joviality of the occasion is almost enough to twist his lips into a bitter ghost of a smile.

"Perhaps you can organize a party for me, at the BAU," he jokes, lifting his eyes to hers for a fraction of a second before cutting them away, once more, to the shadows in the far corner of his cell. If there were no physical barrier, Will wonders of Alana would have cupped her hand under his chin as she had before, gently bringing his eyes back to hers. He wonders many things, spidery little thoughts with spindly limbs, taking root on the edge of his skull. On the worse days, they cover his skull and leave him staring vacantly at the wall for hours. 

This is his reality: He sits on his bed and stares. Ignores questions from security guards. Ignores meals slipped under the doors. Counts bolts and screws along the door. Watches the hallway. Sleeps. Tries to sleep, fails. Takes styrofoam cups of little blue tablets. Thinks. Paces. Counts. Counts shadows and headaches and the depth of his loneliness. He counts and counts and he waits. 

He talks to Alana, once every four weeks. He watches her leave. 

He can feel reality pulling him out of his reverie, clamping on his wrist and pushing him from the shadows. Alana is still here, standing, waiting, wearing a pink dress with thin white stripes, a touch of blush on her cheeks. A flush creeps along her collarbone, and Will recognizes it as a sign of stress. 

She smiles at the joke but it falls flat, seeming out of place against her features. “I made you a cake, but then I realized they wouldn’t allow you to have a fork to eat it. It was- it was stupid. And impulsive. But I just-" Will watches her throat twitch as she swallows, shaking her head and forcing down whatever she had planned to say next. Her words fall over one another, fast and stumbling and hot on her tongue. “I just miss you," she whispers, forehead cold against the glass. Her shoulders twitch in the stale, yellow light of the mental facility, skin painted jaundice and eyes tinged with an entirely deeper brand of hopelessness. He can pick out the flavor of it anywhere.

And Will presses his lips together and frowns, and sighs, and wonders and wonders about what to say while potential condolences fill and brim over his tongue, stopping cold before reaching her, before wrapping their syllables around her skin like a winter coat after spending an entire summer in the attic. He wants this so badly for her, to be enough for her, to be the anchor holding her boat afloat. He wants so many things.

But there is nothing, only Will’s hand against hers, against that cold and apathetic glass, his eyes where she cannot meet them, and an unspoken grief so deep he wonders how similar they must appear in this rusted prison- cell light.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked this first one shot! Feel free to contact me through here for comments, criticism, or suggestions for more. You can also reach me through my tumblr, which is wanderstag.tumblr.com. Thank you for reading.


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